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DRAEDANI

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DIRECT DRAW DRIVER FOR AOE?

Hey, I have an Avaratec 3120v laptop. and i want to play Age of Empires II (AGE OF KINGS), but when ever i load up the screen turns black like its going to play, but it throws out an error message: " Could not initialize Graphics , make sure you video card and driver are compatible with direct draw"  

 what does it all that mean and whatt can i do to fix it  --Thanks DRAEDANI
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SunBow
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Well, see if you can get a decent 3D graphics card, with maybe 32MB min. RAM on it. THen go to vendor/mfr website and download and install the most recent device driver for the card.   This will be well worth your while, for AOE is not the only one with more requirements.

One thing you can do to speed it up is to look at the manual, or rather, the readme file on the CD, for it will give you good clues for cards that are known to be compatible or have problems.  If problems, it''l also have a few workarounds for a few cards, but do not count on it helping you.

On thing you can try is to set up very low resolution, such a 800x600 and 256 colors. Up that scale as needed. You'll need ram, turn off all fancy options such as sound and special effects, you might get something to work. Then get yourself the latest DirectX and let it be. Do not let any game install eaarlier one, the newer versions always work with older SW IMO, but an older install can confuse the disk filing system.
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SunBow
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ProfWilliamWang

There are only two of us who have attempted to answer DRAEDANI question I'd be quite happy with an equal split.